Armour Weapons

Abstract

This classic compact book, published in 1909 was written by Charles Ffoulkes (1868-1947) who was the Royal Armouries first full-time curator. He writes an informative book on the evolution of personal military defense for individuals and horses, from a highly functional, simplistic mail-based harness to plate harness to the highly decorative, and in some cases, grotesque harnesses illustrating the prostitution of a craft degraded to satisfying the personal fashion whims of people who possessed more power and wealth than a sense of true combat.For any student of the art, or for those who practice the ancient armoured combative arts requiring one to wear a harness of the period and wields period replica swords, will fully appreciate what makes this book invaluable, is the fact that Charles highlights the numerous subtleties of armour contruction and design elements which for most of us are unattainable, and who also highlights artifacts which no longer exist today having been lost during the world wars. It is clear that he had written this book after years of developing hands-on expertise of this art through his work at the Royal Armories. If there would be a good reason to include this book in your bibliography, the latter makes this book an invaluable addition.